How (Not) To Break Up With Your High School Sweetheart
How (Not) To Break Up with Your High School Sweetheart
Decide you need to end it
End it
Call your best friends
Pick up unhealthy coping habits
Have sex with other people and lots of it
Fall into a Depression
Write constantly
Try and date someone new
Have a relapse with your ex
Cut yourself off from the world and heal
There comes a time in nearly every high school relationship that melts into the college years, when one person realizes it’s over. Here is how to deal with this when these feelings arise:
At first, you will be inclined to hold onto this boy. After all, he was your first true love. You had plans for a December wedding and the names of your four children already picked out. But on nights when you find yourself unable to sleep because the thought of his hand grazing your cheek, the thought of his hand and no one else’s for the rest of your life, makes you feel like you swallowed a bowling ball, you will become aware of the sensation that the love for him you felt seeped out somewhere in the past year. You decide that enough is enough, and you must end it.
You will want to go about it in the most painless way possible. After all, you did spend four years with this boy. You try to plot ways to slip out of his life causing the least amount of damage and weigh out whether it’s better to wait until he visits you in New York in two weeks, or if a Skype break up isn’t as heartless as it sounds.
He will find a post on your tumblr, entirely unrelated to him, and text you saying “if you want to break up with me, just do it.” You will panic. You will almost chicken out. But you will muster up the strength to call him and tell him it’s over.
He will cry. A lot. You will cry more. He will call them crocodile tears and accuse you of cheating and tell all your friends back home that that is exactly what you did. You will cry even more.
Once the Skype call has ended and your roommate has handed you a box of tissues, you will call your best friends and they will be there immediately with food, drugs, and alcohol. You won’t touch the food because you have a bowling ball still sitting in your lower intestine. It will take months for you to digest it. You will go to your first frat party with the intention of hooking up with someone, but end up way too high and crying on the roof while your friends take shifts rubbing your back and telling you it will be okay. You will not hook up with anyone.
In the days and weeks following, you will start smoking. Marlboro menthol 100’s. Dying of lung cancer suddenly doesn’t seem so scary. You will drown your feelings in weed and alcohol. You will get sloppily drunk when your friend from Iowa visits and end up throwing up in the kitchen sink. You won’t eat until your friends force feed you. Your collar bone will hollow and you will think you look good skinny. You don’t. Try to eat. You can’t. Keep trying anyway. You will spend the next two months high whenever you possibly can be so that you don’t have to think any of the thoughts you’re trying to avoid.
You will create an online dating profile and men will drool over your cleavage and ask to cum on your glasses. They will mostly be weirdos. A few normals will slip into the mix and you will make unsafe decisions to meet them at their apartments in SoHo. You will have sex with them. And lots of it. You will say it’s in the name of liberation and experience, but really it’s because you miss feeling wanted. It will be fun and you will learn a lot about yourself. One guy will take it too far and not listen when you say no. You will cry again. A lot. And no one will understand because you made the decision to go in the first place. You will think it’s your fault. It isn’t.
You will fall into a dark depression. You will begin cutting again and feel really guilty for it. It’s okay, you’re human. You’ll do better next time. You will begin eating again, but now you are binging secretly while your roommate is at dance rehearsal, making sure you clean up all of the McDonald’s bags and ice cream tubs before she returns. You will have a hard time going to class and getting your work done on time. You will break down in an email to your professor. She will understand. She will care. She will forgive you. You will still get an A on your paper.
You will begin to write constantly. Poems and poems and poems trying to capture the darkness. Trying to capture the desperate loneliness and anxiousness you feel. You will miss your ex. You must not contact him. Your friend from home will text you and tell you that he is in a relationship with a new girl. You will think it’s fast and stalk her facebook. You will be relieved when you see she isn’t as pretty as you are. You will still feel like shit. It’s okay. Just keep writing and don’t touch the nail scissors.
Over Christmas break, you and your ex will go talk in the library parking lot late at night. You will find out that his new girlfriend smokes the same cigarettes that you do. You will miss him dearly, but you won’t say it. He will miss you even more, but he won’t say it. You will decide to be friends. And after break, you will try to date someone new. He will be older and taller and more handsome. But oh dear God, will he be boring. And bad in bed. It will take you a while to realize this and he’ll take you out on Valentine’s Day and you’ll think it’s quite nice. But after seven dates, you won’t be able to take his incessant droning about the Israeli Palestinian conflict and you will call it quits. He will text you every few weeks asking to hook up. At first, you’ll lie and say you’re sick. Eventually you will just ignore him. You miss your ex. It’s okay.
Over spring break you will find out that your ex tried to kill himself. You will blame yourself. Don’t. It isn’t your fault. When you return home for the summer, your ex will take you to the zoo and you will end up kissing. He will then take you to the beach and you will end up kissing. You will end up naked in the back of his mom’s SUV in the historical tavern in your town with him. The cops will come, you will panic. He’ll stay calm and it will be okay. He is still dating that other girl and you feel really bad. It’s okay. Try not to do it again. You will do it again. It’s okay. Try not to do it another time. You will do it another time. It’s all right. Just try not to do it anymore. You will have a profound moment of realizing you have lost total control of your life and you will decide to spend the rest of your summer submerged in nature and not dealing with technology. You choose to be a camp counselor in the Adirondacks. There, you will learn normal, healthy relationships with men and women and children and you will do things you never thought you could. You will grow a spine. You will be happy. Don’t let that happiness fade. Hold onto it. Cherish it. And don’t have sex with your ex anymore.